The Brigand | |
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Original film poster
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Directed by | Phil Karlson |
Produced by | Edward Small |
Written by | Jesse L. Lasky, Jr. |
Based on | treatment by George Bruce novel by Alexandre Dumas |
Starring |
Anthony Dexter Jody Lawrance Anthony Quinn |
Music by | Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco |
Cinematography | W. Howard Greene |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date
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25 June 1952 |
Running time
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93 min. |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Brigand is a 1952 romantic adventure filmed in Technicolor and directed by Phil Karlson. It is the second film that Anthony Dexter made for producer Edward Small for Columbia Pictures after his debut in Valentino.
Loosely based on The Brigand by Alexandre Dumas, the film is set in the Napoleonic era in 1804 in the mythical Iberian nation of "Mandorra". The film bears a resemblance to The Prisoner of Zenda with Dexter playing a dual role of a rogue exile who impersonates a King in danger of being overthrown by his cousin played by Anthony Quinn.
The scheming Quinn plans a "premeditated accident" to King Lorenzo by giving him a hunting weapon that is rigged to fire backwards; an idea reused by director Phil Karlson in his The Silencers. With the real King unable to perform his duties, the swashbuckling distant relative Carlos DeLago, late of the Sultan of Morocco's Guard steps in to save the Kingdom.
A rogue exile impersonates a King and a virtuous person wants to be so because he is the rightful heir to the throne.
There is no producer credit on the film but the movie was produced by Edward Small just before he left Columbia to return to United Artists. Small hired Robert Libott and Frank Burt to write the script in 1949.